This weekend I took my kids to the Angst Gallery in downtown Vancouver, Washington to see the Game Changers exhibit. This exhibit was curated by students and professors of the CMDC program at Washington State University. The exhibit explores some of the technological innovations that have occurred in the 40-year development of video games, showcasing influential video games that have changed cultural views and behaviors as well as impacted business, education, health, and communication.

In other words, game changers.

The room was laid out in a progressive manner. You could see how games started with the simple PONG, moved to Tetris on the Mac Classic. My favorite wall was started with a Ms. Pacman arcade cabinet, and ended with Mass Effect, with playable Pokemon on Game Boy Advance in the middle.

All of the games displayed were playable, which made the exhibit much more interactive than many. There was a very active Dance Dance Revolution tournament at the entrance to the exhibit. Other notable games included Blind Side, which the player could only navigate through sound, not sight, and a demo of the Oculus Rift.

It was evident that the event was put together with a lot of passion by the CMDC students, and the games they chose were good examples of the medium moving forward in many areas, from multimedia design, to 3d, to gameplay choices. The exhibit is open until March 28, 2015, and you can get more information here.

You could easily drive by the strangest corner in Vancouver, Washington. Traffic flows briskly at 40-50 miles per hour past the intersection of 137th and Fourth Plain. Three of the four corners are very mundane, a hospital, a gas station, and a used RV lot. The fourth corner looks like just another gas station as well, until you get closer. Then the oddness becomes apparent.
The corner is dominated by a gas station, seemingly an Arco with AM/PM minimart attached. But look closer. All Arco signs are covered with tarps or tape. There is no sign of any alternate name anywhere. Where a business name should be, a large vinyl sign simply reads, “NOW OPEN”.

In front of the mysterious un-named gas station, a mechanical woman on a handtruck waves a sign reading “Tacos ‘n’ Cream”. Her eyes are dead and lifeless, her brown hair stirs listlessly in the wind. In the distance behind her, one can see the food truck she advertises. Even farther back, a small race track made of old tires behind a chain link fence corrals about a dozen idling go karts.

Today I had a free afternoon, and I decided to see how much fun I could have at this strange little corner with twenty dollars. I decided to start with the go kart track, because going around in circles at high speeds after eating somewhere called Tacos ‘n’ Cream seemed like an exceptionally bad idea, even for me.
The cash register for the track was in a building that also seemed to be the headquarters for an excavation company, and after paying my $11, I was promptly led to a go kart with no instructions other than to return to the pit when I was flagged down after 10 minutes. The kart was powered fairly well, and hugged the corners nicely even though the track was wet from recent rain. I enjoyed driving the track, and it would have been much more fun if I were racing someone. Ten minutes seemed like quite a long time, and eventually I was flagged to the pit.

It’s hard to talk about Tacos ‘n’ Cream without mentioning the owner. Chester-Castillo Morales’ face lights up as he sees you, and he exclaims “welcome home” to each new customer. He is obviously very proud of his offerings, there is an entire placard dedicated just to his beans. He will happily tell you all about his process for removing most of the lard from his meat, and he proudly showed me his grease trap, which had no actual grease in it.

My burrito was quite good and filling, and there were certainly plenty of black beans in it. For dessert I had a scoop of mango strawberry “ice cream” which looked like sweetened frozen fruit. It was delicious, but I couldn’t see any cream in it. I thought it was funny that my entire meal didn’t actually have tacos or cream.

I ended up spending just over $23 at Vancouver’s strange little corner, including the losing scratch it lottery ticket I bought from the mystery gas station. It was a fun hour or so, and a good reminder to stop and notice what’s around us. You never know what strange and interesting things you might find.

I just finished the first season of the podcast Serial. It revolves around a reporter investigating a murder over 14 years ago. Many of the witnesses, including the person charged and convicted of the crime, have very fuzzy memory of the day of the murder. Depending on which version of events you believe in, there is either someone innocent in jail, or the right person was convicted.

Home plays with that idea of unreliable memory as you go through the game, asking you how you “remember” certain things. Did you find a body here? Was he where he says he was? Did he have a drinking problem? The answers you give shape the game, and create the atmosphere of doubt, that you, the player, are an unreliable narrator.

The motto of this blog is many games, little time. I probably have the time to finish 20% of the games I purchase. Some people look for games that are 20 hours or more, and if that provides value to you, great. I’m becoming more and more appreciative of bite size games, even games that can be finished in one sitting.

Home is a great example of a bite size game. Using simple pixel graphics, the game leads you through a dark adventure in about an hour and a half. The choices you make will greatly affect your story. Will you have your character pick up that gun?

Would you like a $15 Playstation game for free? If you play through the first 15 levels of the mobile game Fat Princess: piece of cake, you will earn a voucher for the Playstation 3 game, Fat Princess.

The two games are very different. The original Fat Princess for Playstation 3 is a multiplayer action strategy game featuring up to 32 players and has 5 character classes to switch between. The mobile game is a simple storm the castle game with jewel matching for attacks. The mobile game allows you to buy upgrades or pester your friends on Facebook to progress quicker. I was able to beat 15 levels without resorting to either.

I thought the mobile game was fairly enjoyable, but after 15 levels, I was done with it. I was able to redeem the code on my Playstation 3 with no problems, and now I have a free console game. I hope some of you will take advantage of this promotion. Getting a free game for playing a free game is a pretty good deal!

Today, Eiji Aonuma unveiled a few details of the new Legend of Zelda title for Wii U to be released in 2015. Since I am a huge Zelda fan, this was the E3 announcement I was most excited about. Although very little was shown, what I did see piqued my interest, and what Aonuma said about it gives me a lot to look forward to in 2015.

All previous Legend of Zelda titles have been a collection of small areas stitched together to give the illusion of a large world to explore. In the fist game, each area was only the size of a TV screen! This new Zelda game will feature a TRUE open world. If you can see it, you can travel to it. No loading screens while a bird flies you there, or a train moves down a track, etc. The puzzles in the new Zelda title will be figuring out how to use what tools you have at your disposal to get around natural obstacles. Of course, there will still be monsters to fight, caves and dungeons to explore.

A new Legend of Zelda game with open world exploration like Skyrim? Could I be more excited? (No.)

I want to share how perfectly it captures a household of the nineties with every detail from letters printed on a dot matrix printer, to old TV shows taped on VHS tapes stuffed into cabinets. I want to praise the original music that perfectly supports the themes of the game. I want to share in detail all the themes the games explores, such as…well that’s where I’ll stop.

The thing is, I want you to play this game for yourself. I could tell you all about it, but the game is about discovery, and if I told you almost anything, it would ruin it.

So, here is what I’ll share with you. The game opens with Kate returning from a European vacation to a creepy old house in the Pacific Northwest. The wind and rain howl outside, and the lights flicker occasionally. No one seems to be home. As Kate, you navigate through the halls and rooms, clicking open drawers and doors. You will discover much about your absent family, and even the original owner of the house, while exploring every nook and scrap you come across. The story unfolds at a very satisfying pace. I really enjoyed Gone Home’s environmental storytelling, and I never found myself confused for long as to how to unlock the next area. My experience with Gone Home was about 4 1/2 hours, yours might be slightly longer or shorter depending on how thoroughly you search.

If you ever spent an afternoon in your grandparent’s attic going through old boxes, peeking into a life you never knew they had, this is the game for you. If you want a first person adventure that isn’t about shooting people in the face, this game is for you. If you haven’t played a video game in a long time, and want a slow paced game with simple controls, this game is for you. If you have felt the pleasantly hot sting of your first love, and felt no one understood you, this game is for you.

Most are utterly terrible, with the exception of a few gems like Angry Birds or Plants Vs. Zombies. Apple has the best marketplace for mobile games, keeping in mind 95% of the apps are crap. If a game does well on iOS, you can expect to see a version on the Android Google “Play” marketplace. Another 3 months after THAT, the Amazon appstore might get a version of a game, that will likely never be updated. Amazon has an incentive program called Amazon coins that you earn for purchases in the Amazon Marketplace. Each coin=one cent.

Today (10/16/13) if you want to earn $4.60 in Amazon app funny money, “purchase” these 23 FREE apps. You don’t need to download; each app “purchase” (free)earns 20 cents. I highly recommend you spend this $4.60 on good games like The Room, Plants Vs Zombies, or maybe Angry Birds Star Wars. I can’t in good conscience advise anyone to spend any time on the following 23 apps, with one exception.

Here is a list of the 23 free apps that will earn you Amazon coins for a total of $4.60 in Amazon app credit. I inexplicably tried each app for 5 minutes and wrote a short review

So would you play a free browser based game? The strongest reason is that because of their limitation of running on a browser, they often shine with creativity instead of eye popping graphics. Browser games are often short, giving you a satisfying experience in a single sitting. Lastly, all of these games are free! As we reach the sunset of this current console generation, gaming pennies are being saved toward the $500 consoles coming out this fall, and these free games are most welcome.

The Republia Times

This game places you as a newspaper editor in an opressive regime. Basically, you are in charge of printing propaganda. Randomized stories appear in a simple feed, and you must select which stories to highlight, as well as how big to make the story on the page, and what placement it gets. Sometimes you’ll have bad luck, and all of the randomized stories seem to paint your country’s leadership in a bad light. After each day, you see a mockup of your paper, and get instant approval ratings.

Candy Box

Ah, Candy Box. First of all, please don’t confuse this game with the fiendish “free-to-play” Candy Crush. This entirely text and ASCII adventure starts with a simple line stating how many candies you have and giving you the choice to eat the or throw them on the ground. By the end of the game, you are vanquishing multiple foes with your flaming sword on an epic quest. I encourage you to start this game, play for 5 minutes, then let it run quietly overnight, and see how it opens up. It even has a simple save feature. Give it a shot!

Frog Fractions

I saved the best for last. Do not let this game fool you into thinking it is a simple educational game about frogs and fractions. There is SO much under the surface of this game! Your first clue about the devious programming is in the upgrades menu, where the game argues with itself over the virtue or lack there of in buying the auto-targeting frog tongue. Speaking of upgrades, I left you a big clue in the picture about how to really dive into this game. I don’t want to say more, because this gem has many surprises that you should experience first hand. If you play just ONE of these free games, make it this one.

Many games have referenced the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012. Most recently, Assassin’s Creed III incorporated this date as a time of great upheaval, a reversal of the natural order, and a great cataclysm. As with most doomsday dates, this one came and went with no major disasters, no magnetic pole shifts, sunspot flares, meteors plunging into the ocean, or zombies.

Every year my family likes to have an informal holiday party in late December. The first one was memorable for burritos and wine (not a gastricly satisfying combo) and the board game Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The last few years, we’ve borrowed Festivus from the Seinfeld Show, with a simple, unadorned aluminum pole, Airing of the Grievances, and Feats of Strength. A Festivus for the rest of us. This year to mark the end of the Mayan calendar, we celebrated End of Us Festivus.

I tried to come up with a simple end of the world scenario, and let my house be the storybook. While I had fun decorating, as usual it was the energy and enthusiasm of our guests that made the party a blast to host. I never imagined we would go through 5 MREs for the Feats of Strength for example. If you were with us last night, thank you for helping to make the end of the world a blast.